Justice Ginsberg: please resign before the 2014 elections

(PLEASE NOTE: Ginsberg is my favorite Justice – she’s smart and savvy and full of mischief.)

It’s futile to pretend any more that the Supreme Court is non-partisan. Justices are people (the human, not the corporate kind – at least not yet) and don’t have identical values or beliefs. Their perspectives – on law, history, social justice, the U.S. Constitution – are informed by cultural identity, ethnicity, education, religion and probably gender. This has always been true.

Of course a Court is, ideally, charged with rising above the personal and interpreting the law. But we don’t get ideal; we get nine mere mortals who must somehow work it all out and render ‘judgement’ on a legal appeal. (Note to Scalia: judgement involves judging. All things are not self-evident.)

Today’s Court isn’t doing too well with that ‘rising above’ thing. A lot of decisions are nakedly political and too much of the time we have 5 to 4 votes favoring the Right. Also:

The 2014 elections could very well change the majority in the Senate.

Justice Ginsberg is the oldest person on the bench and will be 81 in 2014.

Justice Ginsberg, while mentally acute (unlike Scalia, the next oldest), is physically unwell and has had cancer more than once. Her health could decline further.

A Republican Senate can deny Obama a majority on any Supreme Court nominee. (UPDATE: James reminds me in comments that confirming a Supreme still requires the ‘super majority’ of 60 votes, but still . . . )

If Republicans take the White House and hold the Senate in 2016, that doesn’t bear thinking about.

She and Scalia have for decades enjoyed a close friendship, so perhaps they could make the leap together – before 2014. Solidarity and all. (A bit of trivia – after Reagan nominated Scalia in 1986, he was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98-2.)

Take the leap together. Excellent! As much as we want and need Justice Ginsberg on the bench, better to confirm new judges while Dems still have some voice. Wait until 2014 elections…hopefully we’ll pick up seats in the Senate (and house) if the Reps keep screwing up. As for Scalia…faretheewell.